Musings about food, cooking, wine and related issues -- eating and shopping locally, reading nutrition and ingredient labels, being mindful of food sources -- with digressions into knitting, books, films, music and even the occasional sociopolitical rant.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Because when I am not writing, I am knitting.

I had to have a case of Coca Cola remind my that it is time for the winter Olympics. (Of course, being a bit of a Greek nerd, I still protest the games every two years. By definition an Olympiad is divisible by four. 2010 is not evenly divisible by 4. Therefore, 2010 is not an Olympiad. I'm sure that it's about money and whatever, and I don't even have television programming available in my house, so I really should be beyond caring and complaining.)

Then a co-worker and fellow knitter told me about the Ravelympics being held by the knitting networking site http://www.ravelry.com. In the Ravelympics, knitters cast on with the opening ceremonies and bind off for the closing ceremonies. Two weeks to complete an entire project.

The challenge for me would be two-fold -- complete the knitting project *and* keep up my commitment to writing, which means writing something new every day and revising something already written.

It has a bit of a NaNoWriMo feel to it. I just need to be careful about selecting a project I can realistically finish in two weeks. A fancy scarf should be doable. A sweater, not so much. It should be something challenging but fun.

Maybe it could even be something that I end up keeping. One of my favorite things about knitting is giving away the things that I make. People love hand knitted things. And they really love hand knitted things made specifically for them. It's the coolest thing. Even complete strangers love hand knitted things, hopefully as much as I love making them.

A friend of mine and I recently had a conversation about doing things for other people simply because it brings them pleasure and how the simple act of doing something pleasurable for someone else brings the doer pleasure. That's a lot of pleasure, don't you think?

More people really should try it, even and especially if it isn't a grand gesture. Who knows, you might even find something new to enjoy in the process.